Page 64 of The Orc's Protection
“N-no words, Vraag.”
I kiss my way back up her body, settling my weight more carefully over her. “That was to get you ready.” I reach down, guiding myself to her entrance. “Because this is going to be a stretch, even now.”
She looks at me with those clear, trusting eyes. “I want it. I want you.”
Slowly, carefully, my tip breaches her entrance, and I feel her body resist—not rejection, but adjustment, her body learning the size of me. I go still. Every muscle locked. The restraint costs me more than every year of integration training combined.
“Breathe,” I manage. My voice has abandoned its careful register entirely. What comes out is pure want, barely leashed.
She draws a slow breath and releases it, and I feel her soften around me—just enough. I press deeper. The heat of her is staggering. Her tightness. The way her body grips me like it’s deciding whether to let me in or pull me under.
Both, I think. Both.
“Vraag.” My name in her mouth at that pitch is something I will carry for the rest of my life.
“I’m right here.” Forehead against hers, jaw tight, every muscle fights the urge to move. “I understand. Stay with me.”
Inch by careful inch I work deeper, watching her face—not for pain, though I’m watching for that too, but for the moment wonder overtakes everything else. When it comes, when hereyes go wide and dark and her lips part on a soundless exhale, something in my chest tears open.
“You’re so big,” she breathes. “I can feel you… everywhere.”
“Not quite everywhere.” My voice has gone guttural. “Not yet.”
I seat myself fully. Her body stretches to take all of me, and the sound she makes, low and broken and entirely unguarded, snaps the last civilized thread I had left.
“Riona.” Her name comes out like something I’ve been holding underwater. “Tell me.”
“Full.” Her voice is wrecked, wondering. “So full. Like you’re touching something that’s never been touched.”
That undoes me.
I withdraw slowly—watching her eyes go wide at the drag of it, watching her realize what this is going to feel like—and drive back in. The sound she makes is pure pleasure and I want to draw it out of her for hours.
I set a rhythm. Deep. Deliberate. Unhurried, because I want her to feel every inch of every stroke and understand exactly what she’s accepted. Her legs wrap around my waist, heels digging into my lower back, pulling me deeper. I brace on my forearms and give her more of my weight, caging her, and feel her arch up to meet each thrust like she’s been doing this her whole life.
“Is this what you wanted?” I ask against her throat, my voice barely recognizable. “When you kept the coat? When you came to the gathering and wore that dress and let every orc there see you were mine?”
“Yes.” Her nails drag down my shoulders. “Wanted this. Wanted you. Every time you touched me, I wanted more—wanted all of it. Wanted to know what you were holding back.”
I reward her honesty. I stop holding back.
The rhythm I find now is harder, deeper, the bed frame protesting with each thrust. Her cries pitch higher, and I feel her tightening around me, her body coiling toward release, and I chase it—I chase her, relentless, the last of my careful control burned away entirely. This is not the measured warrior. This is eight years of wanting, finally answered.
My tusks graze her throat and she tilts her head back, baring herself completely. The trust in that gesture—her pulse jumping against my lips, her whole throat offered—undoes something primal and permanent in me.
“Mine,” I growl against her skin. My tusks find the curve of her neck and shoulder—the traditional claiming place—and I feel something ancient and certain settle in my chest. This. Here. Her.
“Yes.” No hesitation. Not even a breath of pause. “Do it. I want them to see.”
I close my mouth over that spot—not a bite, but pressure and heat and suction, my tusks framing her tender skin, my tongue working against her pulse until I feel her shatter. She comes apart beneath me, crying my name, her body clenching around me so hard I lose my rhythm entirely, and I work her through every shudder, every aftershock, unwilling to give her a moment’s rest.
When she finally goes limp, I lift my head. The mark on her throat is vivid—already deepening, shaped by my mouth, unmistakable.Mine.
“Again,” I tell her.
“I can’t—”
“You can.” I shift my angle and feel her gasp, her hips jerking toward me despite herself. I reach between us, my thumb finding her pearl, and watch her eyes go wide at the contact. “One more. Give me one more.”
